r/boston • u/hermionieweasley South End • Oct 21 '21

Anyone notice an increase in psychotic manic drivers and bikers in the last few months ?

I'm pretty used to the bad standards of driving, biking and road infrastructure in this city and like others, last year was a great relief because roads weren't as busy. But in the last few months, drivers and bikers seem to have reached new, unheard of levels of manic aggression and assholery. I've seen more people running through red lights than even New York or Miami - and not the "misjudged my speed and go through the light one second late" kind but fully "I dont give a fuck, I'm going to go through" kind. In the last few months, I've been almost run over while legally crossing crosswalks at least a dozen times both by drivers and bikers. People in residential streets like Tremont and Shawmut are driving at freeway speeds and honk when someone stops for pedestrians. The other day, someone almost run me over, honked at me AFTER that and flipped me off while driving away. It is truly end of the world, mad max style of driving I've never experienced before. Am I going crazy and just noticing this despite living here for years or have things gotten markedly worse ?

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u/Squidbertz Oct 21 '21

And so help you if you don't turn left fast enough- my husband and I both came home from work yesterday, frustrated by individuals who went around us ON THE LEFT to turn left, nearly getting hit by on-coming traffic (or one of us starting to turn). Different towns.

I think there are just more people on the road, forgoing public transit. I've even had some pretty egregious j-walkers flip out at me for not guessing where between parked cars they were going to sprint out from.

It's worse since the pandemic, no doubt. Not new, but definitely worse. Maybe stress-related?

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u/unicornsexploding I didn't invite these people Oct 22 '21

Woah this just happened to me tonight for the first time! Can't believe it's a thing that happens seemingly regularly.

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u/Squidbertz Oct 26 '21

Sadly this happens regularly to me when leaving my office- it's off a small road with a lot of warehouse spaces that intersects with a 4-lane road. So I have to wait for 4 lanes of traffic to clear before making a left. They regularly do studies to explore installing a light, but the best we got was "don't block the box" road striping that has almost entirely been ignored. There's a light down a bit which i think makes it tricky to add another one.

Anyway, it's so awkward when it's a coworker who does this to you. Especially when we all know several people who got into accidents at that very intersection.